Lawton: Wild could contend for Cup

In an interview before the Wild was bombarded by St. Louis 6-1 in Game 4, Brian Lawton, the former North Stars player and Tampa Bay Lightning general manager who now resides in Edina, said, "Win or lose [Wednesday], I think [the Wild] can still win the Stanley Cup."

Lawton didn't want to take anything away from St. Louis. When he was asked about the Blues, he said, "Everybody thought before the series that St. Louis had a real strong shot to win the Stanley Cup."

The Wild will need to rebound in Game 5 in St. Louis and play the way it did in the first three games of the series, which is when expectations for this squad really skyrocketed. The key will be a rebound performance for goalie Devan Dubnyk, who had a rough game Wednesday but has been the MVP of this team.

Besides the play of Dubnyk, what does Lawton view as the reason for the Wild's big turnaround and success in the second half of the season and into the playoffs?

"The young players have been good, but the veteran players like Zach Parise and Ryan Suter have been amazing," he said. "Then it's the combination of the young players — particularly the young defense, Marco Scandella, Jared Spurgeon and Matt Dumba — those three young guys on defense have played really well for them."

Being a former GM, Lawton understands the pressures that can be placed on a head coach, and he thought Mike Yeo handled himself well when the Wild's season was on the brink of collapse.

"I think [Yeo] has done an excellent job," Lawton said. "He was very, very close to losing the team and probably getting fired and he really weathered the storm, hung in there and he never lost control of the team. … That was a tough time, and he passed the test."

"St. Louis has a lot of size and probably even physicality over the Wild, but the Wild is two things: They are really quick and they're absolutely not intimidated by St. Louis," he said.

But Lawton also said one issue that could hurt the Wild is goal scoring, which was part of the problem Wednesday.

"The one thing that when it doesn't go well for the Wild is that they can struggle scoring goals, their goal scoring can dry up," Lawton said. "They don't have that one — Zach Parise was their goal leader, he had 33 goals in the regular season — but they don't have one guy who has like 50 goals like [the North Stars] used to have with [Brian] Bellows or [Dino] Ciccarelli or Bobby Smith. They don't have that element and they don't have a lot of guys that are in that medium range. If it doesn't go good for the Wild, it will be because they had trouble scoring goals in the end."

Still Lawton believes the Wild can get through St. Louis and make a run through the playoffs.

"There's not one team that is just way above anybody else, and for that reason I would say the Minnesota Wild have as good a chance as anybody to win the Stanley Cup this year," he said.

"The first two … completed were South High School and Roosevelt," Tucker said. "Year 2, we'll complete Henry High School, Edison High School and Southwest High School. Then the third and final year, we'll complete North High School and Washburn. We'll complete them all."

Tucker said $2 million is allocated per year and then divided between many different schools.

Tucker is proud of the heightened GPA requirements kids in the Minneapolis school system need to compete in athletics. The conference currently has the highest standards in the state.

"How many kids are going to go on to become top-flight Division I athletes or professional athletes?" he asked. "The one thing we know can take them very far is academics."

But can raised academic standards lead some kids to leave city schools and transfer to suburban schools?

• Tom Stillman, the chairman and governor of the St. Louis Blues, has a lot of ties to Minnesota, having grown up in Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School.

• One negative thing about the Vikings' 2015 schedule is they will play their final two home games on Dec. 20 against the Bears and Dec. 27 against the Giants — those could be played in extremely cold weather — and then they finish with a road game on Jan. 3 at Green Bay. And after playing inside the Metrodome from 1982 through 2013, this team has not had good results in the cold. … The Vikings' 2015 opponents had a strong .539 winning percentage (138-118) last season, the 12th-toughest schedule in the NFL.

• When the Vikings play the Raiders at Oakland on Nov. 15, they'll face a lot of familiar faces in former Vikings linebacker Jack Del Rio as a head coach, former Vikings head coach Mike Tice as an offensive line coach, Bill Musgrave as offensive coordinator and quarterback Christian Ponder. … Despite reports to the contrary, Jacksonville Jaguars coach Gus Bradley said the team is not interested in trading for the Vikings' Adrian Peterson and will look for a running back in the draft.

• Eric Musselman, the son of former Gophers and Timberwolves coach Bill Musselman, got a good transfer in Marcus Marshall, who is from St. Paul and will be heading to play with Musselman at Nevada. Marshall averaged 19.5 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game at Missouri State last year, though he was suspended after getting into a verbal altercation with his coach there.

• Former Gophers All-America Ben Blankenship has been named to the World Relays roster that will compete from May 2-3 in Nassau, Bahamas.